


Fireflies

by GrieverBitMyFinger



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Canon Era, Canon Universe, Caring Sebastian, Dancing, Flowers, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Gardens & Gardening, Insomnia, Kissing, M/M, Sleepiness, Slow Dancing, Teenage Ciel Phantomhive, and for gem and flower references..., wrote this for the aesthetic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:54:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26746207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrieverBitMyFinger/pseuds/GrieverBitMyFinger
Summary: It was then that Ciel realized he had been wrong all along,thiswas the most splendid the courtyard had ever looked, and for oh-so many years he had been blind to it--lost in slumber while the world outside changed into something entirely ethereal, made ever-more beautiful by the devil's lingering presence. "It's peaceful," he whispered, voice full of emotion that he himself didn't entirely understand even as they coursed through him in blinding waves. And as if that was not enough, his attention was suddenly drawn away from his lover for the briefest moment by a sudden spark of amber to his right. It flickered and flashed and swirled with the wind, courting another similar glow before gradually joining in with a larger group forming to his left, all gliding throughout the flowers like the unwithering sparks of enticing flames. Fireflies…
Relationships: Sebastian Michaelis/Ciel Phantomhive
Comments: 4
Kudos: 41





	Fireflies

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have much to say other than... I'm back on my 3am fluff-writing bullshit. Who knew my 70th Sebaciel fic would be nothing but unplotted fluff? 😂
> 
> Fic songs: Fireflies - Owl City, Sweather Weather - James Harris (cover), and Venus - Sleeping At Last

The passing of time was inevitable. Just as rain will shatter against the window panes in autumn, and snow will form a pristine sheet upon the ground in winter, so too does the clock continue ticking. It was an endless cycle with a pattern that swirled by at such a maddening pace. Six years had passed since the formation of the contract, yet those years had seemed more like the blink of an eye. But sometimes, life moved on in a rhythm wholly unlike that of the lightning speed it often favoured. Sometimes, it was slow. So very slow...

The sheets rustled restlessly as the boy they swathed shifted for what must have been the third time in thirty seconds. They were far beyond crumpled by now, uselessly kicked to the end of the bed in a wadded heap--no doubt the fine work of two frustrated hands continuously ringing them from sheer irritation. A quiet 'thud' filled the room when the ruffled blankets fell silent, the plush surface of a feather-pillow bouncing faintly as it landed upon the Parisian carpet settled beneath the gargantuan window.

Moonlight painted its pale surface and seeped into the darkness enshrouding the rest of the young earl's bedroom, its beautiful blue light casting an ethereal light upon the alabaster skin it grazed. It seemed to illuminate more of his skin now as it rose higher, surrounded by thousands of infinitesimal diamonds spattered and sparkling across the sea of impenetrable blackness making up the night sky.

"How long has it been?" Ciel muttered to himself, a put-out sound parting strawberry lips as he gazed at the shadowy silhouette of a grandfather clock in the far corner of his chambers.How unfortunate that the moon's glow didn't span quite that far…

However, the nobleman's question was not left unanswered for long, as seconds later, a single chime thrummed from the inner-depths of the ancient clock. He had only been in bed for an hour, and yet it felt like a week had passed. "Bloody typical." He tossed and turned, again and again; closed his eyes, counted sheep, recounted all of the most boring pages from books he had been forced to endure in the early days of his studies, but sleep would not come.

His day was long, and all the tasks he had performed in London were tedious at best. By the time he had fallen into his bath after dinner, he was sure that he would begin to doze then and there, and he _had_. But the instant he was alone - no longer delicately massaged by the careful hands of his demonic butler as he was bathed - sleep eluded him, and he was once again wide awake.

He turned to face the door when the familiar, muted tapping of footsteps sounded in the hallway outside, slow, steady, and perhaps a little too graceful to be created by a mere mortal. His scowl, already brimming with agitation, grew impossibly more testy as three crisps knocks rang upon the mahogany door, a smooth voice following swiftly after. "My lord, may I come in?"

The boy closed his eyes and heaved a heavy sigh. "You are already here, I hardly see the point in asking now."

A muted chuckle sounded from the other side of the door as the knob turned, revealing the demon’s smirking face to the boy curled in the center of his large, cold bed. “My, I see someone is rather snappish tonight. Whatever is the matter? You should have fallen asleep over an hour ago.” With little regard for formality at such a late hour, Sebastian briskly strode from the entrance and took a seat on the edge of the bed he had become so very familiar with as of late. Without awaiting his lover’s answer, he reached out to brush slate bangs from Ciel’s exasperated features, sensing the fatigue rolling off of the sleepless earl like vicious ocean waves.

“I am well aware of that, I haven’t exactly been hosting a celebration here,” Ciel snapped sharply, agitation dripping from him like a heavy downpour as he addressed the immortal who all too often invaded his thoughts as much as he did his chambers. His tone then softened into one bearing defeat rather than thinly-veiled anger when he spoke again, voice quiet as he reluctantly leaned into the long fingers caressing his right cheek. “I cannot sleep. I’ve tried everything short of laudanum, but nothing works.”

Sebastian watched as mismatched eyes fell shut and that soft skin was pressed deeper into his own, his amused smirk melting into a more sincere one. “I would normally suggest chamomile tea, but as it failed to ease you last time you were this restless, I’m afraid it would do no good. Perhaps your mind is unable to catch up with your physical exhaustion?” A hummed agreement made him sigh. “As I thought. Then I am left with only one idea: We must find a way to tire you enough to fall asleep.”

“Is that your sly way of asking me to bend over for you, devil? Because it won't work, I’m still sore from last night," the earl grumbled, cheeks glowing a vibrant shade of rose as he swatted Sebastian's other hand away when it made to caress his side. While a romp beneath the sheets would surely help him find rest, tomorrow was the first day on a new case, and he refused to be carried around the city simply because he was aching too much to walk.

Ciel's words caused a sly grin to play at Sebastian's mouth as his thumb grazed across his prickly master's bottom lip; his eyes narrowed in a teasingly seductive fashion. “Oh, but I think I could quite easily convince you anytime I'd like to, beloved," he purred, amaranth eyes glinting with mirth as the smaller male shuddered beneath the oppressive weight of his fallen angel's near-constant arousal. "However, I happened to have something less physically demanding in mind tonight.”

With his heart aflutter and skin warm from the obvious lust the demon flaunted, Ciel wisely chose to ignore his first comment, lest he find himself lost to the throes of passion in record time with his butler looming proudly over him. Crossing his arms across his chest in futile hopes of muffling the resounding thud of his pounding heart, the boy released a slow breath. “Well? What is it then?”

“Take a stroll through the gardens with me.”

Ciel raised a single brow, turning into the hand cupping his jaw to lay a kittenish peck upon his lover’s palm. "A stroll through the gardens at such a late hour…? Would it not be more impressive during the day?"

With a deep croon in response to the earl’s soft gesture, Sebastian smoothly disentangled the boy’s lavender-scented tresses from betwixt his fingers and stood. "You may find this surprising, my lord, but the blooms are far more brilliant beneath the moonlight than they are under the sunlight. Particularly your roses." Extending a single ungloved hand, Sebastian easily pulled Ciel from his comfortable perch on the bed.

The cold surface of the mahogany floor he now stood upon made Ciel shiver, but he did his best to brush it off, allowing Sebastian to guide him onto the intricate, kork-hewn rug at the foot of his bed with little complaint aside from a quiet tsk. "Very well, I shall go, but this better not make me even more incapable of falling asleep."

"I assure you, it won't,” the demon placated, "However, I must dress you first. It's a bit too chilly for you to go out in your nightshirt." With slow, well-practised movements, Sebastian began to undo the buttons lining the front of his master’s sleepwear--one of his own shirts that the boy had snuck several months prior. In fact, the nobleman still thought him oblivious to his shirt’s whereabouts. The thought made him chuckle, earning a confused stare from his human. It took him no time at all to slide the soft fabric from Ciel’s shoulders and replace it with one of a thicker fabric, slipping a misty blue waistcoat, and sapphire coat over it to shield his diminutive form from the early autumn breeze. Matching boots were buttoned to his knees just before they began their departure down the grand staircase.

Their walk to the courtyard was bathed in comfortable silence. Though their fingers were not interlocked, they grazed against one another with every step the pair took--softly, warmly. By the sixth shared swing of empty hands, Ciel caved and caught the devil’s longer fingers with his own the next time they brushed. Neither of them verbally acknowledged the action, they never did, however, their fingers remained connected as they stepped onto the neat pathway that wound through the garden like the great halls of a never-ending labyrinth.

With his eyepatch missing from its usual perch over his wisteria-tinted eye, Ciel was able to see the garden in its full glory for the first time in months. Hedges that loomed far above the couple lined both sides of the pristine walkway as they ventured deep into the Eden of flora, crafted by the skilled demon’s own hands with the aim of pleasing his master and invoking envy in all others who laid eyes upon the magnificent display. The finely-trimmed greenery dispersed more and more the further they ventured from the manor, fading away an etched stone wall that rose no higher than Sebastian’s hips. The petite walls guided them to the center of the garden where a large fountain was settled, water of the finest crystal sparkling from granite spouts molded into thorny vines and dripping down to the edges of the leaf-reminiscent sculptures carved beneath. The highest point of the fountain resembled a single, forlorn rose, a detail the earl had never quite taken the time to appreciate until now.

A sea of flowers bloomed around them when the walls of stone and greenery disappeared entirely, leaving the garden’s inner square wide open to admire without barriers or disruptions. To the left side of the fountain, moonlight delicately kissed the sooty petals of black hellebores and the cherry flourishes of bleeding hearts, and caused the velvety depths of the snowy, aurelian lilies nearby to appear as if they were hewn from unblemished moonstone. On the opposite side, yellow tulips and orange freesia shone as brightly as the sun despite the shadow cast over them from the fountain’s silhouette.

The violet asters and pink peonies surrounding on the last remaining sides were just as Ciel imagined the vibrant flora always mentioned in fairytales his mother had read him as a child, and for a single moment, he almost swore Sebastian had planted them there for that very reason. For some sense of nostalgia that he himself could barely grasp in the vicious sea of memories swimming like a whirlpool inside his mind, and yet the serene expression his lover bore convinced him otherwise. He had chosen those particular blooms for the mere reason that they looked stunning beneath every colour the sky donned.

“Well, young master, what do you think?” Sebastian breathed close to Ciel’s ear, hand relinquishing its hold on the aristocrat’s, only to find purchase on the small of his back. With slow caresses along the azurite cloaked waist, Sebastian subtly studied his master’s awestruck expression. Had he not found the sight of the boy so lovely this way, features softened by his amazed tranquility and the blue glow of midnight, the demon would have found it amusing that Ciel had seen his own garden in its entirety only a handful of times since its recreation. He made for quite a sight like this--eyes aflame with something akin to contentment as he reluctantly turned from the flowers that reached out in worship to the star-speckled canvas of onyx overhead.

Heterochromatic eyes gazed at Sebastian with what he could only assume was unbidden fondness, searching his expression for something the butler was unable to place. From the vantablack locks he'd born at the time of their first meeting in hopes of someday rousing his master's interest to the hellfire eyes that remained in every form he took, Ciel's ocean eyes roamed.

'How ironic that the garden's creator outshone the flowers he'd nurtured and studied closely for so many years,' the nobleman thought, taking note of how similar Sebastian's features were to some of the flora. His eyes like the spider lilies beneath the plum-hued shrub near the tulips, his hair as dark as the black dahlias in one of the distant patches of soil, his lips as soft as the petals on the earl's favoured white roses that bloomed on each of the hundreds of bushes surrounding the smaller varieties of flowers.

It was then that Ciel realized he had been wrong all along, _this_ was the most splendid the courtyard had ever looked, and for oh-so many years he had been blind to it--lost in slumber while the world outside changed into something entirely ethereal, made ever-more beautiful by the devil's lingering presence. "It's peaceful," he whispered, voice full of emotion that he himself didn't entirely understand even as they coursed through him in blinding waves.

And as if that was not enough, his attention was suddenly drawn away from his lover for the briefest moment by a sudden spark of amber to his right. It flickered and flashed and swirled with the wind, courting another similar glow before gradually joining in with a larger group forming to his left, all gliding throughout the flowers like the unwithering sparks of enticing flames. Fireflies…

The living lights floated about above their heads like shooting stars and twirled around their ankles in a formation not entirely unlike the milky way, illuminating the ground beneath them as well as decorating their clothing with golden prisms and faux halos.

"I'm pleased you think so," Sebastian said with the first twitch of a mischievous smile spreading across his rosy lips. "It was quite a lot of work to design this way, as I'm afraid the original garden was rather unimpressive in comparison. It held only thirty species of flowers whereas this one possesses over one-hundred… It took an entire hour to plant all of these."

"How awful, an entire hour… It must have seemed like an eternity for you," Ciel gave a derisive snort before raising a single brow at the smirking demon. "You say all of this as if you expect something in return aside from my praise. I feel that my soul is compensation enough, but pray tell, what are you expecting? A kiss? For a quick romp against the fountain?" His wry expression was met with a delighted chortle; clearly, he'd had the exact reaction the devil had been hoping for…

"I would never dare to ask such a thing of you, young master," the butler teased, cleverly taking that as his opportunity to pull the boy closer. "However, if you feel it necessary to reward me despite that… Perhaps you would consider a single dance with me? We did come here with the aim of tiring you enough to sleep after all."

"So that was your ultimate goal, to goad me into dancing with you?" Ciel sighed. How like the demon; much like himself, Sebastian's end goal was almost always self-satisfaction… "Very well, I'm feeling particularly generous tonight, so I shall grant you a dance. But in the future, just ask me, you foolish demon."

“As you wish, my lord.” Without another word spoken, Sebastian captured Ciel’s right hand in his left and coiled his other arm around the boy’s narrow back, his palm resting just between his master’s shoulders. Possessing all the grace of a swan in flight, the demon guided his lover back just one step before smoothly pulling him forward once more. Their movements were as slow as the fall of raindrops and as fluid as those of a professionally trained dancer, unhurried and uncaring, for they paid no heed to the accuracy of the bolero they performed. They were alone here, free from question or critique as their steps fell into perfect harmony. The dance was one Sebastian had taught Ciel mere months ago, and yet, it was more ingrained in his memory than many of the history lessons recited to him over the years. Despite his usual lack of finesse when it came to step sequences, each movement he made, no matter now slight, was nearly as steady as Sebastian’s own.

The immortal could easily pinpoint the reason for his sudden poise: Ciel’s mind was far from his usual worries over missing a step or turn. He was not overanalyzing it as he did in the ballroom, nor was he staring at his feet in an attempt to correct a fault in form. Instead, his eyes were locked with the demon’s own, lost and mesmerized within their rich lycoris depths. He was almost hesitant to part from his human when their arms extended to push their familiar forms away for the breath of a second, but that reluctance soon dissipated when he spun the boy back into his arms, their bodies shifting and curling together like the intricate coiling of English ivy. He caught the fleeting flash of a smirk upon his lover’s lips when their arms intertwined once more and they circled one another without breaking eye-contact, the light of a hundred fireflies reflecting from eyes of the brightest delphinium and lavender.

The earl’s dark lashes fluttered against the fireflies’ jonquil luminance as the pair swayed tranquilly after a small series of elegant spins, and Sebastian couldn’t bring himself to tear his eyes away, bewitched by how willingly--and perhaps foolishly--Ciel offered his unfaltering faith to his demon, trusting him to guide him blindly, without falter or fail. And he strove to do just that as the tender moment carried on through another pattern of swings, sways, and twirls. The weight in his arms grew heavier the longer they remained intimately intertwined, and it was with a fond gaze that he realized Ciel was beginning to grow weary.

With a final spin, Sebastian reached out to hold his master nearer as they delved into the dip that would end the seemingly endless moment they shared, bathed by the light of the moon, the stars, and the countless fireflies. And as Ciel was suspended above the ground by his warm arms, the butler noticed the ghost of a smile upon his master’s face. Unable to resist the enticing pull of their thrumming bond, he leaned in to capture those camellia-reminiscent lips with his own. The kiss was soft and unsteady with Ciel’s increasingly fatigued state, lasting for a mere moment, and yet, it was brimming with the depths of the devotion they shared, forged by both their contract and steadily growing fondness.

When the demon’s eyes slipped open once more, it was to the bleary ones of his master, clouded with sleep despite the boy’s reluctance to show it as he clung tighter to his lover. Sebastian could only chuckle as Ciel blinked more to compensate for the languid drifting of his lashes and mustered the energy to frown at the sound, his irritation as false as the wakeful state he tried to flaunt. “Well, you had your dance. Are you satisfied now, demon?” the boy asked sleepily, his leaden eyes losing their desperate battle as they began to drift fully shut against his will.

With an amused smirk at the irony of Ciel’s sudden reluctance to sleep despite his desperate desire for it a mere half-hour prior, Sebastian gave an affirmative nod as he righted them from their bent position and instantly swept Ciel into his arms, cradling him close as he took the first step toward the manor, where his master’s bed currently awaited them. And as Ciel’s breaths began to slow and deepen as he finally gave into the gentle beckoning of slumber, Sebastian’s lips found purchase atop his ashen-locks. “Indeed I am... For it was the best dance I have ever shared, young master.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi, request things, all that good stuff!  
> Tumblr: griever-bit-my-finger


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